Have Christians always believed Jesus is God?

This question has been stirred up since the success of The Da Vinci Code book and its adaptation into a movie.

The Da Vinci Code suggests that The Council of Nicea in 325AD was where the Christian leaders (Bishops) of the day 'voted' that Jesus should be considered divine.

However...

Some of the earliest Christian writings that have survived from antiquity were written around 170AD (155 years before the Nicene Council) by a bishop in Asia Minor. Melito of Sardis was a prominent figure of second-century Christianity known for his apologetic defense of Christ against the various claims of paganism, Judaism, and Christian heresies.

He was a man of brilliant mind and deep conviction, one who seems to have truly felt the horror of humanity's rejection of God. Tertullian speaks of Melito as a man of eloquent genius. Eusebius makes note of many of his writings, quoting three of these works at length.

Melito lists the first Christian canon of the Old Testament. Melito's Canon consists exclusively of the protocanonicals minus Esther. If the missing book is restored, this represents the same canon used by the Jews and most Protestants. Melito also excludes the deuterocanonical books (apocrypha) from his cannon which are used by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Until somewhat recently, much of Melito's extensive work existed primarily in fragments or in quotations preserved by authors after him. In 1930 a discovery was made in a Coptic graveyard of a large number of papyri, and among these works was a Greek manuscript identified as a homily of Melito of Sardis. Known as "On Pascha" (On the Passover), it is a homily that recounts the history of Israel and the exodus from Egypt in light of the events of Jesus of Nazareth and the Cross of Christ.

In "On Pascha", Melito writes of Jesus,

"This one is the Passover of our salvation. This is the one who patiently endured many things in many people: This is the one who was murdered in Abel, and bound as a sacrifice in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and sacrificed in the lamb, and hunted down in David, and dishonored in the prophets. This is the one who became human [since He was God first] in a virgin, who was hanged on the tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from among the dead, and who raised mankind up out of the grave below to the heights of heaven. This is the lamb who was slain, and now stands.

This is the Christ [Messiah], who is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Clearly Christians knew Jesus was God from his days walking the earth surrounding Gallilee, and His divinity was not decided by a vote.

Justin the Martyr also addressed Jesus as divine in his writings using the analogy of Fire for the trinity and using the already existing understanding of Jesus as the Logos or "Word" of God made flesh. "In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth...No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:1-18)

The Vote at the Council of Nicea was simply to solidify the Church in the truth and to condemn the heresies circulating at the time. One such heresey which was Arianism which denyed there is One God, saying that Jesus was a divine being but nonetheless created by (and consequently inferior to) the Father at some point, before which the Son did not exist. This heresey has continually resurfaced, notably with Michael Servetus (widely considered the first Unitarian Martyr) who was executed on October 27, 1553, for denying the Trinity, that Jesus had eternally existed with the Father and cliaming that Other human beings, touched by Christian grace, could overcome sin and themselves become progressively divine.

See also:
Is Jesus God?
God